Trump holds call with Putin to discuss Russian 'plague' after death of scientist

Trump holds call with Putin to discuss Russian 'plague' after death of scientist Trump has said he is in “very deep discussions” as he schedules a call with Putin to talk about the 'Russian plague' after the death of a scientist Donald Trump has said he has a call scheduled with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss a possible case of plague at a Siberian research institute. The US President said to reporters at the White House, he would be talking to Mr Putin about the case “very soon”. Health authorities are investigating after the death of an employee at an anti-plague institute, which authorities attributed to pneumonia with an unknown cause. Asked what the US intelligence community was saying about the case, Mr Trump said the US is in “very deep discussions” on the topic. “We’ll be able to report about it, probably tomorrow,” Mr Trump said. Russian authorities have placed people in quarantine after plague research institute employee Daria Shipilova, 28, contracted pneumonia from an “unknown” cause and died. Officials have said they found no evidence her illness was caused by any of the pathogens she worked with, but media reports suggest she may have died of pneumonic plague. The woman, who worked at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia, died after she accidentally broke a test tube holding live plague bacteria while she was collecting samples, according to the Kyiv Independent. Other reports suggest that the woman fell ill after a field trip to a region where plague occurs naturally among wild rodents. Shipilova was hospitalised in Shelekhov in Irkutsk on September 29 with severe pneumonia of "unknown origin" and placed on a ventilator. She died on October 2. Plague, which is usually found in small mammals and their fleas, is no longer found in the UK, but occurs in several countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas. Person-to-person transmission usually requires direct and close contact with the person with pneumonic plague. If left untreated, plague can cause rapid death, but antibiotics can be effective if the disease is caught in time.